Former Alabama U.S. Rep. Artur Davis eyes bid for a new political career in Virginia as a Republican

View full size(Press-Register)U.S. Rep. Artur Davis at a press conference in Mobile during his bid for the Democratic Party nomination for governor on Monday, Nov. 30, 2009. (Press-Register, Mike Kittrell)

MONTGOMERY, Alabama — Former Alabama congressman Artur
Davis is shifting his voter registration to Virginia and says that if he
seeks public office again, it will be as a Republican.

Davis, who
represented Birmingham in Congress for four terms and then
unsuccessfully sought the Democratic nomination for Alabama governor in
2010, announced his decision on his website. Rumors have circulated for several days that Davis might seek a return to politics.

He wrote that people
whose judgment he values have asked him to consider running for Congress
in northern Virginia in 2014 or 2016 or for that state's General
Assembly in 2015.

"The short of it is: I don't know and am nowhere
near deciding. If I were to run, it would be as a Republican," wrote
Davis, who moved to Virginia in late 2010 to join a Washington law firm,
then left to become a fellow at Harvard's Institute of Politics.

A
Harvard-educated lawyer, Davis was a House member two years ago when he
tried to become the first black governor elected in Alabama. He started
out leading in the polls for the 2010 Democratic primary, but then
voted against President Barrack Obama's federal health care overhaul and
decided not to seek the endorsement of black political groups. Former
Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks picked up those endorsements and won
with 62 percent of the vote.

It's unclear what congressional seat
Davis might seek in northern Virginia, but the 11th Congressional
District is a swing district in which Democrat Rep. Gerry Connolly
narrowly won re-election in 2010. Before Connolly's election in 2008,
Republican Tom Davis held the seat for 14 years.

Artur Davis noted
on his website, "I am in the process of changing my voter registration
from Alabama to Virginia, a development which likely does represent a
closing of one chapter and perhaps the opening of another."

In an
email to The Associated Press on Wednesday, Davis said he was filling
out his Virginia voter registration form and planned to have it mailed
by the end of the day.

Virginia, like Alabama, does not require
voters to register by political party. A voter can choose to cast a
Republican ballot or a Democratic ballot in a primary election.

The
black wing of the state Democratic Party, the Alabama Democratic
Conference, was among the groups to back Sparks in 2010. Conference
Chairman Joe Reed said Wednesday that Davis' announcement was no
surprise because he had been moving toward the Republican ranks over the
last two years. He said starting over in politics in a new state is not
easy, and Davis will have to work hard to build a base of support if he
hopes to run and win.

"He's a very well-spoken young man. He'll have to see how Virginia Republicans respond," Reed said.

The
ADC chairman said Davis' move from the state and from Democratic
politics won't hurt the Alabama Democratic Party. "We won't have a
shortage of people," he said.

Before Davis announced his decision on his website Tuesday, he hinted at it in a writing posted a week earlier.

"I
am not surprised that disaffected moderate to conservative Democrats in
my home state are finding their way to the Republican Party, which for
all its excesses on immigration is a consistent force for reform in
ethics and education, and which favors the pro-growth economic policies
that Southern moderates know are critical to attracting new job
sources," he wrote. "Similarly, for Democrats who recoil at the
influence of the gambling lobby, the Republican Party is a natural
alternative to that influence."

In an email Wednesday, Davis said,
"I think the Republican Party is prospering in Alabama and will
continue to as long as it avoids the temptation of power: getting too
entrenched in special interests and drifting into corruption." He said
he believes the party is "in very good hands."

Former Alabama
Supreme Court Justice Mark Kennedy was elected chairman of the Alabama
Democratic Party shortly after the 2010 election. Kennedy said Davis
never called him to share his thoughts about the state Democratic party
and its future.

"I guess I'm not going to be Republican enough for him to do that," Kennedy said.

Phillip Rawls of the Montgomery office of The Associated Press wrote this article.